Dartmouth to Host International Vaccine Conference Dec. 6

Thayer Senior Lecturer Kendall Hoyt and Ford von Reyn '67 Geisel '69, are co-chairs of the conference. (Photo by Robert Gill)

Duane Compton, dean of the Geisel School of Medicine, will introduce the keynote speaker and Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock will deliver welcoming remarks at the all-day conference to be held on campus at the Hanover Inn.

Organized by the Dartmouth International Vaccine Initiative, the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, and Geisel, the program will also explore the role of academic vaccine institutes and critical issues in vaccine acceptance and vaccine access.

Structural biologist and former Geisel assistant professor Jason McClellan, now a professor of molecular sciences and the Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin, will deliver the keynote address. He will discuss COVID-19 vaccines and the structural basis of immunogenicity, which refers to the ability of cells and tissues to provoke an immune response.

Earlier this year, Dartmouth's vaccine breakthrough on stabilizing coronavirus spike proteins led by McLellan earned a Patents for Humanity award from the US Patent and Trademark Office in the COVID-19 category. McLellan was also recognized for this work in 2022 when he received Dartmouth’s inaugural McGuire Family Prize for Societal Impact.

"One of our objectives with this conference is to highlight how the social sciences can be applied to vaccine development upstream in ways that help ensure vaccines become vaccinations," says conference co-chair and morning session moderator Kendall Hoyt, faculty director for the Dickey Global Health Initiative's Pandemic Security Project, assistant professor of medicine at Geisel, and senior lecturer at Thayer School of Engineering. "We will also focus on mechanisms to improve vaccine access and strategies to reduce hesitancy barriers."

Speakers will include other faculty members at Geisel, Thayer, and Tuck School of Business, and from the Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth. Brendan Nyhan, the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor of Government, will speak on vaccine misinformation and politicization.